CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEW : Top Soprano Has an Uneven Night

Soprano Kathleen Battle had an uneven night at Civic Theatre Saturday. In the opening half of her recital, she started two songs over again, apparently fighting drainage or some other vocal discomfort. And, on several occasions, the diva was at odds with her overly independent accompanist, Kenneth Griffiths, whom she gave numerous corrections with unsubtle hand signals. After intermission, however, Battle regained her customary composure and, after the closing set of Richard Strauss lieder, compensated her approving audience with five encores.

At her best, Battle approached the sublime. Her four Franz Liszt songs on poems by Victor Hugo radiated an innocent sensuality. She caressed the playful French texts, spinning out a delicate web of shimmering vocal lines. Especially in “Oh! quand je dors,” her floating tones invited the listener into a secret, magical realm.

Nor did Battle shy from displaying her coloratura bravado, which she unleashed with vigor in an aria from Handel’s secular oratorio “Semele.” In “Myself I Shall Adore,” a text whose subtleties no soprano should have trouble conveying, Battle’s pinpoint accuracy and constant focus through rapid passage work reminded the capacity house that this diva belongs in the most exclusive vocal circles.

What was disturbing about Battle’s Saturday night performance was her intermittent presence. When singing Strauss’ engaging “Sausle, Liebe Myrthe,” or Sylvia Olden Lee’s pathos-filled arrangement of the spiritual “Lord, How Come Me Here?” Battle’s emotional commitment became palpable and her timbre warmed considerably. But in a group of three Mozart songs (including “Das Veilchen” and “Abendempfindung” and a rarely performed aria from “Le Nozze di Figaro,” the comely singer seemed distant and uninvolved. Since Battle is a Mozart specialist, her emotional retreat was doubly disappointing.

According to officials at the La Jolla Chamber Music Society, the recital’s sponsor, Battle changed her original program at the last moment, inserting additional three pieces with flute obbligato. (Her program bio announced an upcoming joint recital in New York with French flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal.) These were the only works for which she used music, and, although her performance of them was far from tentative, they lacked the conviction of the rest of the program. Flutist Judith Pearce’s precise but dull-timbred line added little.

Jean Phillipe Rameau’s “Rossignols Amoureux” was charming and full of predictable echoes between flute and soprano. If Michael Head’s “Bird-Song” added a welcome note of gentle contemporaneity to the proceedings, Sir Henry Bishop’s “Lo! Here the Gentle Lark” was little more than turgid Victorian posturing. Although Bishop wrote 130 operas--none are performed today--he is chiefly remembered for having composed the maudlin tune for “Home, Sweet Home.”

As Battle’s keyboard accompanist, Griffiths lacked both accuracy and empathy for the singer. His touch was brittle and heavy-handed, although he evidenced some affinity for the dense textures of the Strauss lieder.